Indian Literature
Huston Smith reading (handout courtesy of Lisa Haney at Athenian)
Key terms
The Four Wants of Man
Kama: pleasure
Artha: success
Dharma: duty
Moksha: release
Jnana: the way to God though knowledge
Bhakti: the way to God through love
Karma: the way to God through work
Raja: the way to God through psychological exercises
Student: beginning from age 8-12, lasting 12 years, character education
Householder: satisfies three of the human wants: pleasure, success, duty
Retirement: withdraws from social obligations, finds meaning in the mystery of existence
Sannyasin: “one how neither hates or loves anything”
Brahmins: intellectuals, spiritual leaders, philosophers, artists, teachers
Kshatriyas: administrators, the regal and warrior caste
Vaisya: trading and agricultural caste, producers, artisans, farmers
Sudra: followers or servants
Dalits: untouchables
* * *
Atman—soul or inner spirit that is the microcosm of Brahman (sanskrit of God), or the whole, which is itself in a state of constant creation and destruction—as the “self”, which is at once everything and no-thing.
Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva—triple deities representing, creation, preservation, and destruction (a cycle also symbolized by the sounds “a-u-m”)
Maya—the material, sensual ephemeral and ultimately illusory world to which desires and mental categories become fixed or “attached”
Reincarnation—one’s next life as a stage where particular attachments from former lives are worked on and hopefully purged
Karma--one’s destiny, the result of past lives and past errors or virtues
Dharma—duty, one’s karmic social role and duty to be fulfilled in this lifetime
Moksha—release from worldly attachments of separation, release from maya
Yuga—an age of the world. Four in number—Krita (Vishnu), Treta (Rama), Swapara (Sauti and Saunaka), Kali (the present day)--each with decreasing dharma, resulting in degradation in social, moral order
Overview of periods of Indian literature
Vedic period: coincides with invasion of Aryans, last 1,000 years (1500 B.C.E-500 B.C.E)
Major Texts--Rig Veda, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Sutras
Classical period: 500 BCE to 1st C. AD
Major texts—The Mahabharata, section of the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana